I don’t think it was that crazy for the crowd to be angry Bryan wasn’t in the Rumble. They left 10 spots open beforehand, his match was first, he’s been tweeting stuff like “geez, guys, the Authority really doesn’t want me in the match” to make it look like even more like he’s going to end up in it. Plus, when Rey came out at 30, we all kinda realized “Shit, Batista’s really just gonna win isn’t he?”

Also, I don’t know if it came across on the broadcast, but when JBL got knocked out immediately, the crowd gave him the first “You still got it” chant that I’ve ever enjoyed.

Hooo boy, that shirtless Ambrose pic belongs in my collection. The ONLY thing that I am looking forward to with the Shield breakup is the possibility of a shirtless Ambrose. I’m gonna go rewatch that bit..

I don’t know if I fully agree with that last point. Fans deserve what they pay for, and what they’re paying for is entertainment. Judging by the crowd and the crowds from the shows in the previous weeks, the WWE must have known that the fans wanted Daniel Bryan. If I’m not being entertained, or if the thing I’m witnessing is actually making me angry, I’m going to boo the hell out of it much more than in real sports, because it’s scripted. I agree with your reason as to why Batista is getting this push. It makes the most sense in terms of business, but if I were any one of the fans that wanted Bryan in the Rumbe last night, I have absolutely no problem with how they booed the ever loving hell out of Batista, Sheamus, and Mysterio.

IMHO, the best thing they could do now is give Bryan the IC title. It’s all well and good sticking it on up-and-coming talent as a way to make them legit, but remember when your favourite guys wore that belt? It would then again serve as the stepping stone to challenging for the WWHC. It would mean something. Anybody who can beat Bryan to the title deserves it.

At the moment there’s way too many people there or thereabouts for the WWHC, none of whom seem legitimately better placed than any of the others (apart from Dave). They need to get a proper structure back in place to turn this naan bread of a hierarchy back into a proper MK-style tower.

Shit surprised I made it onto the top 10 also fuck El Torito that masked midget eliminated Fandango which legit makes him the most hated wrestler ever because Jesus Shit Hornswoggle and Mantaur’s bastard child is a horrible thing.

What’s with the “There is absolutely no reason why you have the right…” crap? We’re the ones who buy the merch, who buy the PPVs, who buy the tickets, and who will subscribe to the WWE Network. And even if we didn’t, we don’t have the right to say that an entertainment product is not entertaining? What the hell is that?

“Be mad at the ecosystem of ‘wrestling booms’ and crossover stars. Be mad that guys who have proven popularity at some point in their careers…” I think that’s exactly what we’re mad at, and Daniel Bryan is the personification of that anger, just as Dolph Ziggler was before. We want to see the guys who work hard, who display authentic charisma, and who aren’t fed to us like we’re foie gras geese. We want to see Daniel Bryan because he’s terrific, but just as much, we want to see him because he represents everything “the ecosystem” isn’t.

The sad thing is that Ziggler still got a huge reaction AND a chant despite being punished/concussed/buried/whatever. How is he rewarded? Unceremoniously eliminated after taking a bawss spear and selling like a champ.

It’s stupid for a guy to not be announced for a match and then get mad when it happens and he’s not in the match. Slightly disappointed, yes, but to get super mad about it is irrational. They didn’t announce him for it and then have him not show up in it.

@Brandon – it’s not just that Bryan wasn’t in the Rumble, it’s that Batista won it. If Roman Reigns or CM Punk had won, the crowd would have gone home happy. Hell, if anyone other than Batista had won it, the crowd would have been a lot less belligerent. Batista is terrible, everyone knows it, and the fact that he’s getting this major push enrages a lot of fans.

@Tippi – I feel like Batista winning was the most obvious thing in the world. Did people really order the show thinking a guy who wasn’t in the match was going to win, and not the old celebrity who just sauntered back into the main event stories and has a summer blockbuster coming out? It just seems like folks are getting mad about things that were obviously happening.

It kind of seems like Brandon has determined exactly *why* everyone in the crowd was booing. Did some EXPECT Bryan to be in the match? Yeah, probably. Where there others who figured he wouldn’t be, but still held on to hope until they saw Rey? Sure. Were others just really fucking pissed that an old timer who’s not even much of a movie star was about to win the Rumble? Yeah.

I think what REALLY pissed me off about it is that he came back, what, 8 days ago? and hit a SUB PAR spinebuster and powerbomb on Del Rio and the next thing we see him doing is winning the f*cking Rumble.

Brandon, they did a horrid job of saying he wasn’t going to be in the Rumble match, there’s been tons of people who have done matches and been in the Rumble later in the night, the only way that you could’ve known for sure that Bryan wasn’t going to be in the Rumble was to check WWE’s entry list, and that only had… what twenty people on it? The fans in PA wanted to see Daniel win, or at least be in the Rumble, I honestly only think Die Hards would really know he wasn’t going to be in it… and even we didn’t know for sure.

@Brandon – Undertaker, John Cena, Edge, Brock Lesnar all won without being announced for the Rumble. It isn’t without precedent that someone comes in as a surprise (or a “surprise”) and wins it. That’s why I think that fans have a right to be upset, because the WWE has a culture of keeping the fans in the dark about some things in order to surprise them.

It was what people have been referring to as the “non-swerve swerve”. Personally I thought they’d made it so obvious that Batista was going to win that some doubt actually crept in and I figured there’s a good chance they won’t go through with it, especially with Bryan being white hot and hitting ever increasing levels of popularity. I legitimately thought they might have him enter and win as a surprise, going for a feel good moment like when he turned on Bray. A lot of Bookmakers thought so too (not that betting on wrestling is the wisest course of action), seeing as lines shifted heavily saturday and sunday with Bryan replacing Batista as the favorite in many oddsmakers eyes. Either way I think the fans in Pittsburgh and the ones all around the world have every right to voice their disapproval. WWE has made its own mess by relying on past stars and part timers to pop buyrates for far too long. This is like going to a fancy restaurant and ordering a $55 dollar entree and being served some stale, artificially flavored shit on a plate (that Bray-Bryan appetizer was 5 star quality tho)

I generally agree with Brandon on what should be really upsetting about it, but I also understand why people are upset about Bryan not being in it, too. I think “They didn’t announce him for it and then have him not show up in it” is one side of the argument, but the other is that a BIG part of the Rumble, from the official promotional materials to the actual match format, is all the surprise entrants. And in that line of thought, I can see how the most over guy in the company, plus making it Super Extra Clear about how he’s not going to be in the match, plus a match placement at the opening of the show so if he WAS going to be in the final match he’d be rested for it, looks an awful lot like a really poorly-kept secret to have Bryan appear in the Rumble. It’s been done before. Hell, the Wyatts appeared in a second match on the same show. It’s a company and industry based on Big “Surprises”(tm), and Bryan appearing in the Rumble is exactly the kind of swerve that the company might do (and frequently does). So I think there’s definitely a case for fans to feel like they were being set up for one thing, and then upset when what they got instead was boring cross-brand synergy.

BRBRck summed it pretty well. It’s insulting to the regular wrestlers on the roster and to the dedicated fans that watch the product to have an out of shape old timer just show up and win the rumble and getting main event spot at ‘Mania because the WWE is more concerned with cheap publicity than its own product. If Bryan’s not in the Rumble at least have Punk or Reigns win it.

“Brandon, they did a horrid job of saying he wasn’t going to be in the Rumble match, there’s been tons of people who have done matches and been in the Rumble later in the night”

This. I was just watching the 99 Rumble with a friend of mine to get amped up for this Rumble and I’m pretty sure that almost everyone who had a separate match that night was in the Rumble match. Plus having him lose to open the show gave it a kind of Bret Hart Wrestlemania X vibe. And then when the Wyatts attacked Cena, it seemed like they were tying in the Bray/Bryan story with the WWE title story and setting the scene for Bryan to be a surprise entrant. The whole thing smacked of a giant trolling by WWE.

@Brandon: “Did people really order the show thinking a guy who wasn’t in the match was going to win, and not the old celebrity who just sauntered back into the main event stories and has a summer blockbuster coming out?”

And therein lies your logical fallacy, Brandon. I’m assuming that most people who were at the show on Sunday night were like me, and bought their tickets well in advance of the event, and certainly well before it was announced that Batista would be returning. So yes, when I bought my ticket, it was with the hope that Daniel Bryan would win the Rumble and go on to headline Wrestlemania. And while I realize that the 30-40 people that I could hear and/or interact with made up a very, very small portion of the crowd at the Consol, I can attest that there was a pretty commonly held belief that because Bryan had been so decisively beaten by Bray that he would come staggering/limping out at number 30 and somehow do the impossible.

Point being, for what I would wager is a large majority of the people who were in the arena, whether Bryan was advertised to be in the Rumble for the two weeks leading up to the show or not, we expected him to at least be in it, if not win the whole thing, so the booing was a natural response to the disappointment of a barely mobile 40-year-old who’s a shell of his former self coming out thirtieth instead of the best wrestler in the world, and then, immediately afterwards, the realization that an even-less-mobile 45-year-old who’s been out of the business for four years was going to win the Rumble and headline Wrestlemania…again, instead of the best wrestler in the world.

I know I’m not the only one who booed Batista lustily and chanted for Bryan until I literally couldn’t speak out of the fear that if we didn’t, any chance of Vince and company realizing the error of their ways would disappear. I know you’ve advocating the “wait and see” approach regarding all this, Brandon, but how much longer are we going to wait? With Wrestlemania now looking like a show that’s going to feature more of Triple H’s buddies than actual, productive members of the roster, is it really so wrong to boo the shit out of a terrible decision? And, on the subject of Wrestlemania HHH, why is it that the one Trips associate who fans actually WANT to see on ‘Mania is the one with the least chance of actually appearing? Life is a cruel mistress sometimes, and sometimes, Rey Mysterio suffers because of it.

I probably am one of those new casual fans that WWE really wanted to get watching their show. So I did watch it, and it was pretty good, I watched people like Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns be fantastic over the last year. Then some old man who I don t know called Batista shuffles his way into winning because apparently he s in some american film I had literally never heard of once before. So yes, I am pissed off that the wrestlers I actually know and appreciate didn t get to win the Royal Rumble.

@Brandon — I think you’re blowing out of proportion how mad people were. They were fans of an entertainment vehicle that promotes cheering/booing. They didn’t like what they were being handed and booed. I’m not sure how that’s “getting super mad”.

I don’t think anyone who’s even semi-rational is demanding their money back or anything like that. We’re disappointed that, with a few unannounced spots in the match, the WWE chose to leave out the only one the fans wanted in. If Bryan was even IN the match, they likely don’t give a shit about Batista winning. But the fact that we, the fans, were ignored so blatantly is what anyone is pissed about.

Most of us knew Batista was going to win because that’s how it is, but to not even give our favorite guy a shot when we’ve ALL been screaming his name for six months seems like a slap in the face.

I don’t think the fans were simply pissed at the lack of Daniel Bryan. I mean, they definitely were, but it was a perfect storm of shitting on the fans when Winded Old Muscle Bag Batista won it without the faintest element of entertaining anyone.

Spot on about “fans” vs “devotees” though. And pretty much all the other things you said, because you are clearly stealing my thoughts.

@misterrictus Agreed. It was the second helping of badness that kicked it into overdrive. The fan reaction is as much about Old Stars vs New Blood as it is about Bryan.

I really hope that’s the story they actually mean to be writing. If it is, they’re doing it excellently, leveraging everything people believe about HHH (and some of his heel promos suggest he is channeling that) and working all us “smart” fans as much as everyone else. I swear I’ll forgive everything if they do that and its not just What’s Happening In Real Life Because HHH Is Really That Bad. (Basically, I hope NXT HHH is Real HHH)

@Gorilla: The other key is that they can’t drag it out forever. I get the “wait and see” mentality; and it’s a *good* thing if long-term angles could be possible again. But they can only kick the can so far. It doesn’t look (right now) like Bryan gets any redemption at Mania– so how long can they make us wait?

I think it’s just a case of the fans knowing what’s up and being 100% to let WWE know. The crowd was booing and chanting DANIEL BRYAN almost non-stop through the Orton vs. Cena match, too. I mean, shoot, you have the champ and the modern-day Hulk Hogan getting roundly booed because neither of them are the little bearded fireball that everyone loves. That’s pretty fucking awesome, if you ask me.

@pencil-necked On the other hand, every time Bryan’s been screwed, the chants get louder. If I was a long-term thinker in WWE creative, I’d definitely consider building that up more and more and leaking info that suggests its shoot lack of confidence in Bryan. If that beautiful bit of wishful thinking is true though, it’s time to pull the trigger. They’ve built the fever pitch chants, but they have to channel it into a payoff soon or risk more crowd hijacking, which is not good for the show if it becomes common.

Guardians is going to be first film in the Avengers series to turn people off. The world that they created with the first Iron Man was largely based in reality, and that’s why it worked so well. If Tony Stark was hanging out with Meko, I don’t think it would have done so hot.

I predict it’ll do something in the area of the Green Lantern flick. Probably $100M+, but if it even comes close to $200M, I’ll be shocked.

I don’t doubt that Guardians of the Galaxy will most likely be a hit; I’m merely pointing out that not all Marvel movies all huge successes. Also, it’s a kind of a stretch to refer to Agents of Shield as a hit show which is a shame as the show has gotten a good bit better recently.

Not likely, Marvel in full control of their own movies have proved to be a money-press. Hopefully they get hand of ther Spiderman and F4 rights again soon (The X-men movies are okay, but ideally I would want the whole universe back together so they can litter the movis with crossover cameos, easter eggs and random fandom.)

I’m fine with the Old Ass Outlaws winning the belts as long as they job them to the Usos fairly soon – preferably on a RAW before the next PPV. I’ve been saying for the longest time that the resurgence in the tag team division is meaningless unless an actual gimmicked tag team has the belts instead of some super-team. Yes, both the Rhodes Bros and The Shield were booked as super-teams so they are. Once the belts get into the tag team division then the Outlaws have done their jobs and we can get excited about tag title matches again. As long as they don’t lose the belts to MexiShow (Big Show and Mysterio); that would defeat the whole purpose.

If WWE is so pumped about a mainstream-baiting match at Mania, it seems to me like “Movie Star Dave Bautista” vs. “UFC Champion Brock Lesnar” is much more of an attraction than anything else. Why do casual fans or whoever even care if the movie star is being given the championship?

I spent the better part of undergrad reading what I felt was way too much Marvel and I have friends who read the fuck out of comic books and I have literally no idea who or what the Guardians of the Galaxy are.

He’s Drax the Destroyer. He’s basically Space Hulk with a murder boner for Thanos. I agree with this line of thought, but that movie is going to be a box-office hit for at least a week and any kind of cross-promotion benefits the WWE in the short-term. It’s definitely not the best in the long-run, but it’s not like there’s an actual competitor to the WWE.

I hate to be a pedant, @Minister of Propaganda, but Sony only has the rights to Spiderman. 20th Century Fox has the rights to X-Men and Fantastic Four.

And, @Jim Bradfield, from what I’ve read they are making a Wonder Woman solo movie. Gadot has apparently signed a 3 movie deal: the Man of Steel sequel, the Justice League, and a Wonder Woman solo effort.

If the fans at the show hadn’t been watching for the last couple of weeks they had no idea whether or not Daniel was going to be in The Rumble, fuck, they did such a bad job of promoting the ppv that most of us didn’t know if he was going to be in the Rumble either. There’s been people who have competed in matches, and then been in the Rumble later, so it totally makes sense for the fans to think Bryan was going to be in it, especially with how the story had been building, and the ridiculous amount of good will Bryan has earned.

I have to wonder just how much they actually advertised whether or not Bryan was in the Rumble match. Mick Foley had an absolute shit fit on both Twitter and Facebook after the Rumble, which seems a little odd since he’s the WWE Ambassador and all.

This is what I’m saying, there was no pre saying that Bryan totally wasn’t going to be in the Rumble, it would’ve been different if they’d advertised heavily, and said over and over again that he wasn’t going to be in it, but they didn’t. They just ignored the situation altogether.

I’ve only been a withleather user for about 15 hours but, I was already an avid reader of the B & W of RAW. I would just like to say thank you Mr. Stroud for bringing me out of a wrestling depression so deep that even a drunken Pokemon marathon couldn’t. God Bless you sir.

I don’t think the reason that we as fans are angry is because of the result, but rather the fact that WWE quite clearly showed that they don’t give a fuck about their audience. With the fans clearly wanting Bryan to win, and them just ignoring the fuck out of them. I honestly think people would be more apathetic if the crowd wasn’t so crazy.

I was one of the fans who hoped and dreamed Daniel Bryan would enter the Rumble and win. Yeah, he wasn’t advertised for it but time and again we’ve seen wrestlers pull double duty at the PPV (see the Rhodes brothers this year) so it wasn’t exactly a million miles outside of the realm of possibility. It also made clear, simple storytelling sense for him to win and finally get his revenge on Orton and the Authority at Mania. So many of us wanted to see this happen so badly.
And instead we got an over-inflated sausage monster coasting to victory on the back of a movie role and because he looks the way Vince and co. think a champion should look, talent and worthiness be demand. They basically said “Fuck you” to the fans so we had every right to say “Fuck you” right back at them. If you keep trying to forcefeed someone garbage don’t be surprised when they spit it back in your face.
So congratulations to the egos of Vince, HHH and Steph. Your belief that you know better than the fans and are always, always right has earned you the most boo’d and detested Rumble finale of all time. You screwed up the second most popular match of the year and the crowd made you look incompatent. Fuck you.

“There is absolutely no reason why you have the right to get upset that Daniel Bryan wasn’t in the Royal Rumble and didn’t win it when he had an announced singles match on the show and was not EVER announced to be a part of the Rumble match itself. Why would they keep an important roster guy secret until the last second? What kind of fantasy world are we living in where they clearly announce things and we get upset WEEKS LATER that what they announced was what was on the show?”

Sorry, Brandon: As a reader who agrees with you about 80 percent of the time, and as a professional writer who wishes he had one-third of your ability, this statement is straight up lazy, contrarian BS. Fans don’t have the right to be pissed? Just paying the money and investing the time in the WWE product gives them all the right in the world. Plus, it wasn’t just the Royal Rumble in isolation. The “where’s Bryan’s push?” movement has brewing for months and must be viewed in that context. Fans are finally fed up with not being heard, and they have every right to be.

Plus it was just two weeks ago at RAW that Bryan was in the first match with Bray and then was put in the main event (which turned out to be the most awesome thing ever). I would argue that that booking planted the seed that Bryan could enter the Rumble unannounced. At least that’s what went through my mind last night. I wasn’t surprised Bryan wasn’t in the Rumble, but up until Mysterio came in I was still thinking it could happen…

Well, in Brandon’s defense, it’s not like he paid for it. The Sky Sports Box Office logo is on every photo he posted. Unless he relocated to New Zealand, HE doesn’t really have the right to get upset because he didn’t give the WWE a single dime.

What’s this wrestling business all about as a fan? Blindly eating what’s been fed to you as a product, or helping make mega-stars out of your favourite characters/performers? I’d argue that the first only goes so far in creating the second and, every now and again, somebody ends up going supernova in spite of the booking. You can book people as strong as you like, but if the audience don’t hook on then it’s useless (e.g. Ryback). Similarly, if you’re a well-liked guy who gets booked poorly then it can completely kill that person off (e.g. Ryder).

The Bryan story has gone NUTS across the world (I count the US and UK as fulfilling that statement). Not that long ago, that would have been call enough for the promotion to go full Hogan/Austin, hell, even Punk with the person in question.

“If you can have him headlining your biggest show of the year, people associate your show with Marvel’s or whatever, and if you have him carrying around your championship belt, people who don’t already watch might say “hey, what’s that about” and tune in. THESE ARE THE WORST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. I’M TYPING THIS IN CAPITAL LETTERS SO YOU’LL SEE IT. THEY’RE TERRIBLE. THEY COME AND GO AND HAVE FULL POWER TO CONTROL AND DICTATE THE FUTURE OF THE THING YOU LOVE THE MOST. Why? Because they come and go. They choose whether or not to give the company money, and are not locked in this f*cked up Stockholm Syndrome of love and abuse we lifelong wrestling fans find ourselves in.

The world is no longer divided between “mark” and “smark.” It’s the “fan,” the person who only calls themselves that when they like everything you’re doing, and the devotee, who desperately wishes the best for you.”

The thing about Batista having cross-over appeal or whatever is that selling people on the appeal of Roman Reigns is one of the easiest things in the world. I was telling my non-regular watcher friends that he was one of my favorites, and it took him about 15 seconds to get them all on board. Meanwhile, they asked if Batista had been hurt the whole time he was gone because they hadn’t seen him in any movies.

I like Roman Reigns a lot too, but the guy has wrestled like 3 singles matches since being called up to the main roster and two of them were against the two best wrestlers on the payroll. He is definitely going to be a huge star but he is going to take some serious nurturing before he is ready to headline the biggest show of the year. He is slowly piecing together some great stuff but I think Roman is one of the most protected guys on the roster right now.

D-Bry not being in the Rumble was a tremendous ‘Fuck you’ though and a missed opportunity. Like a lot of other people I wanted to see him win it but WWE should have used the fan service of putting him in the damn match. They still could have had Batista take the win — hell if they are going heel with him there is no bigger heat getter than to have him take advantage of Bryan having wrestled earlier in the night and eliminating him. Anyone who would have eliminated Bryan from that match would have gotten MONSTER heat that they could have carried forward.

With a caveat, I am all-in on Batista winning the Rumble. We’ve already seen the seeds of Orton and the Authority falling out. The Authority needs a new “made champion” and who, in the Reality Era, represents the perfect “made champion” for the Authority? A movie “star” who is a former wrestler. Dude has few moves, isn’t great on the mic and gets gassed from less than 5 minutes and 5 moves. Awesome, awesome guy for the Authority and a perfect representative. Does it piss off the passionate fans? Yes, which is a great selling point for being chosen. (And WWE gets the selling point of having him mention WWE during GotG promos.) Honestly, if you tried to custom-build a better “made champ” for the WM season and through the summer, it would be hard to do better than Batista.

Ok, the caveat: Bryan gets his revenge, the belt(s) and the start of a fairly-lengthy title reign at SummerSlam. At that point, GotG will have been out for 2.5 weeks (with Batista holding the title through the pre-release and early release press) and SummerSlam would be the perfect “big event” for Bryan to finally triumph over the Authority and get his big win. IMHO, if this happens, it will have been really good (long-term) storytelling from WWE and fans will go nuts for Bryan finally getting his due.

I called Batista to win, as most of us did. But the way it went down, the fact that he had no moments of awesome, that he was “former wrestler back but not in WWE shape” winded as all fuck and then we’re supposed to cheer him as the winner? Nope. :: flamingDenethorRunningOffMinasTirith.gif ::

The only thing that we can “thank” Batista for is that the hatred of him was so strong that he catapulted Roman into the stratosphere.

I don’t think the bad reactions are as specifically Bryan related as they’re being made out to be. Granted, Bryan getting shafted is a galvanizing force for the crowd, but I think what they’re really booing is incredibly dull story telling.

They boo’d and taunted Orton/Cena because there was almost no story. It was just “Cena fights Orton because REMATCH.” Sometimes REMATCH is all you need, but not when it’s Orton/Cena rematch #30001-b. And not when it’s a PPV title match.

They boo’d the end of the Rumble so hard because they wanted a surprise, or at least a winner with a storyline worth cheering for. They got behind Bryan because he’s the best, but also because Bryan coming out and winning was about the only feasible story left that other than Batista winning, and the way Batista was handled was just horrible storytelling. Not even because Batista is horrible (arguable), but because the plotline for Batista has been non existent. He came back and called for the title because… muscles? Wrestlemania? His promo with Orton was listless and they did nothing else to hype him or make him sympathetic in the slightest. There was no real angle leading into the rumble, and Batista isn’t so intrinsically fascinating that him just being there is enough.

Just for fun, imagine Batista’s return hadn’t been leaked, and he comes out at 30. Even if the crowd was pro Bryan, I bet they would have popped the roof off the place. Then that’s the energy that rides us through to Batista winning. All the fuck Batista complaints would still be there once the dust settled, but there wouldn’t be all this “crowd going off book” nonsense floating around. And it’s because “Batista returns out of nowhere and wins rumble” is an exciting story. Batista returns, farts around for a week, then comes out at 28, is not.

It’s not WWE’s fault that Batista’s return got leaked, but they should have recognized that it getting leaked required them to change their payoff. Because it only worked as a surprise.

I agree. If Batista had been a surprise I probably would ve found the ending exciting initially.

I seriously can t understand how they didn t have Bryan win though, it was such easy storytelling, just send him out at number 30 and the crowd would ve gone so crazy that you could ve used footage of that night for years to come.

I just want to say how much of a pleasure it was to participate in the live thread last night. So many of you make me laugh; it just really helps to make whatever the hell shit sandwich we often get served go down smoother than it had any right to.

Brandon your last point about Bryan not being in the Rumble is so off base, it’s crazy.

It’s funny that someone who makes a living complaining on a weekly basis about the wrestling product they watch feels that they have the right to tell other fans what they should or shouldn’t be complaining about.